The Milodon Cave and the trip to Torres del Paine



Entrance to Milodon Cave



From El Calafate we were going to Torres del Paine, which thankfully had reopened earlier than originally announced.  We had arranged the trip through a tour company, so we were taken by taxi to the bus station and given tickets for the bus to Puerto Natales.  Aside from a short delay on the bus, this all went well, but when we got to Puerto Natales the promised collection wasn't there.  Half and hour and a few confused phone calls later, we were promised we would be collected soon, and sure enough they turned up and took us off to lunch.  Having been to a couple of good places to eat here, we were vaguely hoping for one of those, but in fact the place they took us was also very good.

 

Milodon Cave

After lunch we joined four other people for the drive to Torres del Paine.  But first we all made a stop at the Milodon Cave.  So if you've been paying attention then you will recall this odd part bear part anteater looking thing that I mentioned in Puerto Natales.  Well it is actually a Milodon, or Giant Sloth. Or rather it was.  This huge creature was around four metres long on all fours or a bit over three metres when it stood on its hind legs.

Milodon replica



Milodon Cave



It is believed to have died out around nine thousand years ago, when they think the changing environment meant that it could no longer get enough nutrients in its herbivorous diet.  The fossilised remains of one of them were found in the cave here some hundred years ago, although this 98 foot high and 262 foot wide home is now empty as the Milodon remains are, typically, in London.  They have though have built a replica of it guarding its entrance, which Nic of course wanted a picture with.

From the cave, we continued on to Torres del Paine National Park and to the Eco Camp that was to be our home for the next six nights.



Puerto Natales

After eventually making it off the Navimag at about eight pm, we walked up through the small town of Puerto Natales to find our hostel.  Our stalkers were staying in another place nearby, so we arranged to meet them shortly afterwards for dinner.  As the walk up from the docks hadn't looked promising, we headed towards the main square in search of a place to eat.  Of course most of the other passengers from the Navimag were doing the same thing and wherever we went we would see a familiar face.  This was to continue over the next week as everyone from the boat was heading off to the same few places on the Patagonian tourist trail.


Puerto Natales



The main square had a fountain in the middle and was still decorated in its christmas lights, so it looked quite a pleasant place to be.  We did wonder about the rather strange ten foot wooden sculpture of something that looked like a cross between a bear and an anteater, but food was our bigger priority at this stage.  We soon found a suitable looking parilla which, although it was a bit too warm inside due to the indoor asado, turned out to be an excellent choice.

Hunger satisfied, the four of us figured we could find somewhere to have a few drinks.  After a bit of wandering around, with nowhere seeming at all promising, we came across a place called Ruperto's.  From the sign outside and the various decorative touches inside, it was apparent that Ruperto is a reindeer.  Don't ask me why.  Inside it looked like the kind of place that would be full of old locals who would all stare at you when you walked in, but in fact it wasn't all that bad.  I figure that in a place like Puerto Natales they know when the Navimag is due in and fully expect a hoard of strangers to turn up.  Indeed, when we arrived, there were already a number of our fellow passengers in place and a few of the crew too.
Shortly after we arrived, the dj started up.   I say dj, but that is something of an overstatement.  He clearly had a pre prepared list of songs set up on his computer, and really just sat there nodding along to the music.  Now having grown up in the eighties, I am always quite happy to listen to a bit of that music, and that was just as well.  It wasn't absolutely all from the eighties though, there was a little bit of seventies thrown in, together with a few spanish songs and a couple of terrible country songs from who knows when!

But the really sad thing about the playlist was his complete lack of imagination in putting it together.  He started at A and played a couple of songs by artists from each letter of the alphabet.  Surely even if that is how he put it together he could at least have pressed the shuffle button!  However this dire piece of dj-ing did in fact provide us with some unintended entertainment as we sat trying to guess which songs he would come up with for each letter.  It didn't take a genius to work out that Queen would figure, but we were a bit disappointed at H when our guess of Human League didn't appear.  We hadn't expected Joan Jet and the Blackhearts, but we were right with Limahl and some others.   

We did get a bit confused when he suddenly jumped to Z and started working his way backwards through the alphabet instead! But we were quite pleased when we got to T, and some of our missing artists appeared such as The Human League.  We left at about 3am, not quite asking it through every letter, but not far off. Overall it was a good evening.

The next day, with little to do here anyway, we took the chance of a sleep in and a lazy day.  Having got a few practical tasks done, we met with our stalkers again for dinner and this time went to a nice little microbrewery.  The challenge of a plate of megachips proved irresistable, and we did eventually work our way through most of the kilo of chips topped with cheese, breaded chicken pieces and bacon!  We also established that we and our stalkers had solved the puzzle of the part bear part anteater thing, but I will reveal the answer to that in a later posting - bet you can't wait!

Early night tonight though as we all had early starts in the morning.

Patagonia from the Navimag Ferry



Chilean fjords

 

Chilean fjords



We spent three nights on the ferry, sailing through the Chilean fjords.

 

Chilean fjords

Chilean fjords  

As well as being a convenient way of travelling the over nine hundred km south from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, it is supposed to have some great views and the chance of seeing penguins and whales.  It is not a cheap trip, far from  it, so we were hoping that it would live up to its billing.



Life on the ship was fairly basic.  The food was set meals canteen style.  They were OK, but not great and tricky with my no fish and tomato requirements, especially the day when we had tomato soup, fish in tomato sauce and a tomato side salad.  I could eat the rice pudding and thankfully they did eventually find me an alternative main course.

 



From the Navimag bridge



We went along to one of the briefings about the route and the flora and fauna of Patagonia.  Not overly exciting, but it did help us to identify the brown and black browed albatrosses and the steamer duck that we saw later in the trip.  I rather liked the steamer duck.  It doesn't fly, but it crosses that water by turning its wings in circles through the water, propelling itself along like a paddle steamer.  We saw a couple and recognised them by this very distinctive and somewhat amusing way of moving.  

We generally tried to avoid the entertainment though.  After the karaoke the first night, we were treated to a film on the second night.  Still not quite sure what was going on in the film, but it isn't ideal when you're in the bar and want to chat.  

 

Puerto Eden



And the third night we had the dual delights of bingo and a party.  This was so good that we and our stalkers put on our fleeces gloves and hats and sat outside on the deck instead!  Though not before we'd seen that winning on the bingo meant a Pontins style ritual humiliation of having to get up and dance to some dodgy tune before you could claim your prize.    



 But the scenery was pretty good.  A lot of it was general hills and mountains, but every so often you would have a beautiful snow capped mountain range, or pass through a narrow channel with little islands.

 The main attraction though was the Pio XI glacier.

Pio XI glacier

We took a detour into a glacier lake to see the huge glacier that was creeping down through the mountains and gradually melting into the lake.  It is apparently the largest glacier in South America and is 1265 squared km.  We could only see the end of it, but it was still pretty impressive.  With a mix of white green and blue colours, it had little caves eating into it and little waterfalls where streams ran through it.  It did look amazing. 



Capitan Leonidas

We also passed the Capitan Leonidas which is a wrecked ship that ran aground in the 1970s and now sits abandoned and skeletal in the Messier Channel acting as a warning beacon and covered with birds.



Albatross (I think!)



We also managed to spot a bit of wildlife along the way.  As well as the brown and black browed albatrosses and the steamer ducks that I mentioned before, we saw evidence of minke whales as they blew water jets into the air, other whales, penguins, and dolphins.  None were especially good sightings, and we didn't really get any decent pictures, partly because we are expecting better opportunities later, so we thought we'd just watch for now.

Lots of birds

We made our way through the Last Hope Fjord, so called because a ship trying to find the Magellan Strait to sail from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 1557 had failed in all its previous attempts and this channel was their last hope. It wasn't the right place do they failed again and gave up.

Penguin

However it was the right place for us, and we finally docked into Puerto Natales at seven pm, somewhat later than the advertised time of around midday, and made our way out through the bowels of the ship rather than having to wait while they unloaded the cargo.



Puerto Natales



Did the journey live up to it's expectations and price.  Well yes and no.  It was a good journey and we did see some nice scenery, and if this is the only chance you'll have to see scenery and wildlife like this then it is probably very good.



The Navimag Ferry



But it is really quite expensive, even if you take a dorm bunk, so whilst I would recommend the trip for itself, sadly I don't think it is good value for money.  But perhaps I would feel differently if we weren't in the lucky position of going to Antarctica later this year.